Homebrew Competition Results
While we were brewing the Channel Crossing #2 today I took the time to enlist the services of Brian Strumke to judge the entries for the annual Oliver Ales Home Brew Competition. For those of you unfamiliar with this competition the concept is simple … brew something that you think would be a valuable addition to the Fall line-up for Oliver Ales. There are no style guidelines, it could be anything as long as we think that we can sell 7 barrels of it . Obviously the winner of the competition gets to come in to the brewery and oversee the brew day and gets to keep a keg for their own use (party time!) The winning beer will debut during Baltimore Beer Week and will be featured at our booth at Oktoberfest on October 9th (@ Timonium Fairgrounds) and in cask at the Chesapeake Real Ale Festival on October 16th (buy your ticket here) and will be distributed to bars in the area. Brian is, of course, a perfect judge for such a competition as he is a homebrewer who has made the leap to commercial brewing. We were also fortunate to enlist the help of our friend and beer geek (and I mean that as a compliment) Nick into the judging process as he just happened to turn up for lunch as we were about to get started.
Brian & Nick get down to the serious business of judging!
Judging was a tricky process as there were several solid beers on offer but after much deliberation we unanimously decided that Judy’s “High Tea” was the winner. Whilst this beer was maybe not as technically as proficient as Ben’s Pale Ale, which was a very close runner up, we felt that it was a little more interesting and challenging and would be a nice addition for the Fall (plus hey, what can I say, I’m English and the prospect of using tea in a brew intrigues me!) I think that (with Judy’s approval) with a few small tweaks of the recipe it will make for a nice addition to our taps at The Pratt Street Ale House. Congratulations Judy, let’s organize a date for the brew. Thanks to everybody who submitted beer, great work.
Tags: home brew